The mind gladdens, awakens, the world sparkles, everything is new.

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Svavar Knútur – Filmforum, Bottrop; May 16th, 2024

Somehow I had thought I would not be able to see any of Svavar’s concerts in my area, but then realized that it was very possible to get to Bottrop. The show took place at a cinema, where we all had a cozy, lovely evening of stories and music.

Always counting on Deutsche Bahn being unreliable, I travelled earlier than I had to and thus arrived at the venue quite some time before the show. It was raining heavily so I was happy to find out that they had a cafe where I could sit and wait. While I had a drink, Svavar and his tour manager arrived and they asked me to join them. I gladly did and we had some interesting conversations about the music industry. 🙂

When the doors opened, I still sat there and when I got in there was but one place left in front row – enough for me. Saw a few familiar faces, said hello and settled down to wait for the show. It started soon with Svavar introducing himself and apologizing for not Speaking German, claiming the show would take five hours then. The first song was ‘Fagurt er í Fjörðum’, dedicated to his grandmother. He spoke about her for a while and she sounds lovely. He gave us a song translation too and played beautifully.

We heard about sister songs and the joy of singing in Icelandic, telling us how few people speak Icelandic and praising the “German nerds” who bothered to learn it. ‘Morgunn’, the love song for his family and ‘Refur’, the lullaby for his song Refur followed. <3 Afterwards he mentioned that the song was number six at Icelandic National Radio and how different all the other songs in the top ten were. It made him happy having got there with being his authentic self.

Svavar told us about finishing a big project with Ahoy Side B, wondering what would be next. One idea is writing songs to the “underdogs of Icelandic poetry” and the other one is writing songs about monsters. He played ‘Medusa’, a song about tour life. I really like this one. He spoke a little about Unanswered, his collaboration with Lucy Ward and Aiden Townes that got 4 stars from The Guardian – “the same number of stars as Taylor Swift” 😀 He introduced us to Icelandic meerfolk and how the “meermen do not look like Jason Momoa”, which led to stories about Icelandic weather. Oh and did you know that Iceland has killer sheep? 😉 All that lead to ‘Isn’t it funny?’ which is cool, but not as funny as the stories Svavar tells with it.

Before ‘November’, he urged us all o go to the merch table, because he had only two concerts left and his suitcase was heavy, pointing out that to support him we could either buy a T-shirt or convince 50 friends to listen to one of his albums 50 times on Spotify. Of course we learned about “skál”, “skål” and “kippis” and a curious genetic fact about Finns. 😉 On a more serious note, he mentioned how grief is about embracing darkness, going through it and coming out into the light at the end. The song was the perfect one to lead us to the break. <3

After the break he talked about wanting to be Troubadix from the Asterix comics, but being able to sing and then pointing out Idefix, a dog that we could hear barking. He also spoke about his older daughter and being a granddad. <3 Then he taught us to sing in Icelandic, because “it is beautiful hearing other voices singing in your language”. Somehow people would not believe him hat Icelandic and German are very similar, so we got lots if examples. In the end we managed just fine to sing along to ‘Janúar’. 🙂

“One of the must beautiful breakup songs ever written in the Icelandic language,” according to Svavar, is ‘Næturljóð úr fjörðum’ (Nocturne from the Fjords) by Böðvar Guðmundsson and explained what it is about and how some people in Iceland regard it as their most important song. He thanked us for ringing it out in him, because our sing-along was so good. What he said about the lyrics made me appreciate the song much more. It was really wonderful. <3 He thought that this was enough breakup songs for the night, but passed on the wisdom that breakup songs should be constructive instead of destructive, then changed his mind and played ‘Emotional Anorexic’. <3

He added how wonderful that particular girlfriend had been, but his own insecurities had not let him be happy in the relationship. Growing up, he had learned to looks down on himself and now was cautious not to pass that on to his children. It made me appreciate the song even more. We also leraned he never has a setlist and even tells his stories differently every night, because he does not want to get bored or bore his audience. True, I have never seen two shows that were the same.

We got the lovely ‘Hope and Fortune’ next, including the story of Icelandic refugees, with 30.000 people fleeing the country and going to America. That was 2/3 of the population at the time. ‘Ölduslóð’ was introduced as “a song about friendship” and played on ukulele.

Like a frog being boiled in water, Svavar said, all tech and social media companies are slowly destroying the fabric of trust in society and communities by monetizing everything. He’s right about small venues going bankrupt and smaller artists having a harder time. Everyone should really support small artists and venues, otherwise we will eventually end up with only artists, who are rich. He thanked us for coming and ended the set with ‘Slow Dance’, the center piece of the show. It is always emotional hearing his describe the birth of his daughter Emma and I can always feel the fear as well as the relief. The song captures these emotions beautifully. I love how it brings us all together in the end with a sing-along too.

He played ABBA’s ‘Like an Angel Passing Through My Room’ as an encore and dedicated to his mother. It was just lovely. Then he told us he always selects the next song based on the energy in the room and ended the show with Joni Mitchell’s ‘Case of you’. I’m not sure I have heard him sing that one before. It was the perfect final song. 🙂 I said a quick goodbye, before rushing off to catch a bus. It had been a great evening.

Setlist

Fagurt er í Fjörðum
Morgúnn
Refur
Medusa
Isn’t it funny?
November

Janúar
Næturljóð úr fjörðum
Emotional Anorexic
Hope and Fortune
Ölduslóð
Slow Dance

Like an Angel Passing Through My Room
Case of you

Cultural differences, Icelandic history and the awesomeness of breakups

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Svavar Knútur – Bar jeder Venunft, Berlin; May 12th, 2024

After three wonderful shows in April, I needed to see more Savar and went to see him in Berlin. It was my first time at Bar jeder Vernunft and it’s a beautiful venue, where he played a fun concert. Absolutely worth the trip.

I arrived in the afternoon by train had some food and went to the venue, where I sat in the garden with a drink. Svavar said hi and told me some about the venue’s history and how beautiful it was. It did indeed look cool, lots of mirrors, nice stage and small tables everywhere. I had ice cream before the show as the place slowly filled with people.

Svavar stepped on stage to great cheers and remarked how cool the place was and how it felt like a circus. He started with ‘Fagurt er í Fjörðum’ dedicating it to his mother and grandmothers, because it was mother’s day. Before singing, he translated the song for us and spoke about his grandmother, who has many grandchildren and great grandchildren and makes them Christmas presents every ear. Lovely.

He mentioned how much he hates writing love songs and gave us examples as to how boring such songs can be. Then he listed all the topics that would be more interesting, among them stars and fish. While at the topic, he continued with Icelandic ways of showing love. It was all very funny. After all this ranting he played us the lovely ‘Morgunn’, his version of a love song. 🙂

Svavar told us that he knew almost everyone in the room and welcomed those he had never met before. The most important thing to teach us was ‘skál’, expanded on how it is in the rest of the nordic countries and joked about how the Icelanders always team up with the Finns to go to the bar. 😀 He continued with ‘Refur’, telling us how he got to spend a lot of time with him because of Covid. The song is really beautiful.

We learned about a lot of his songs belonging together as sister songs and played ‘Lady Winter’ and ‘Hope and Fortune’, the two songs about refugees. We got a piece of Icelandic history too – it was really interesting. He mentioned never wanting to leave Iceland, but loving to complain about it and then joking how that comes natural to Germans. True! Having both of them in the setlist always makes me happy, they are two of my favorite songs. With ‘LAdy Winter’ I can feel the melancholia and then ‘Hope and Fortune’ puts the hope back in my heart. <3

Svavar talked about differences in culture between Germany and Iceland and his first culture clash with Germans about blowing our nose. Go see Svavar Knútur, you will always learn something! 😀 He continued with stories about train travel and delays. It was very funny. I also loved how he wove in there that we should not be yelling at the train staff when the train is late, because it is not their fault and the rule should be “the less you get paid, the less you should be yelled at”. ‘Wanderlust’ was the perfect song to follow. It does not show up in the set so often these days, so it made me smile and sing along. 🙂

At the end of the set, we heard about the project about grief that Svavar has been working on with his songs and how it is finished now with Ahoy Side B. How that lead to his love for Raclette cheese, I have no idea, but loved it. 😀 Of course, summer in Iceland was a topic too before he played ‘November’ the song about going into the darkness. I feel like I say that about almost every song, bt this is one of my favorites too. it very much captures the feeling of the dark season and oh the dramatic changes from slow to faster, just like an oncoming storm. <3

At the start of the second set Svavar talked about how great it is to travel around he world and sing in his own language. We learned about the words “happiness” and “sadness” in Icelandic and how these words literally mean having or not having fur, then expanded how happiness has different meanings in different cultures. It was really interesting. We got a great version of ‘Janúar’ and managed a nice sing-along. It always amazes me, how well it works.

He spoke about going through grief about his father’s death and how hard it was at the time, because so many people died at the same time. He worked through it by writing songs and people liked them, thus he became a musician. We learned more about his father’s life and that ‘Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum’ is about him. Beautiful.

“Breakups are awesome,” he exclaimed, then elaborating on why it is good for people who don’t fit together to not stay together. He gave us examples of bad breakup songs, explaining we should use them as an opportunity to learn about ourselves. Some things and people just do not belong together and Svavar had even made a scientific experiment to illustrate the point. 😉 We got ‘Hard Things’ and ‘The glorious Catastrophe’ and both were fun. Someone asked for ‘The Hurting’, but he answered that after realizing in Vienna what it really is about, he needed to give the song a rest. Fair enough.

“I have one song left,” Svavar told us and everyone made sad noises, so he explained that he likes to have a bit of time to hand out after a concert and if he plays too long that won’t happen. Someone in the audience mentioned their daughter plays ukulele because of him, so that bought us two extra songs. We got ‘Ölduslóð’ and ‘Baby would you marry me?’ on the ukulele – that was so sweet. ‘Slow Dance’, about the birth of his daughter Emma, was the last song in the set – a very fitting end to a show that started with honoring his ancestors. He told us the story too – scary and dramatic and with a happy ending. Such a great song and a beautiful song-along of “come into the light” in the end. <3

The entire room erupted into cheers in the end and Svavar was back on stage just moments later. He talked about growing up in a farm and the records he listened to back then. His favorite song in the world is ‘Like an Angel Passing Through My Room’ so he played it for us. <3 He told us a funny German joke, then spoke about different melodies of different languages, including examples and played us Brahms’ ‘In stiller Nacht’ in-between. 🙂 He ended the concert with ‘Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá’.

Svavar was surrunded by friends afterwards, so I said goodbye quickly and left, walked back to the train station and dreamt of music on the night train home.

Setlist

Fagurt er í Fjörðum (Látra-Björg)
Morgúnn
Refur
Lady Winter
Hope and Fortune
Wanderlust
November

Janúar
Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum
Hard Things
The glorious Catastrophe
Ölduslóð
Baby would you marry me?
Slow Dance

Like an Angel Passing Through My Room (ABBA)
In stiller Nacht (Johannes Brahms)
Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá